THE LONDON LITERARY GAZETTE;ANDJournal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences &c.

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A more original, profound, or
correct view of a character as interesting as it was intricate,—one whose seeming
contradictions were at once such materials for theories, and such temptations to erect
them,—was never taken than in the volume before us. Mr.
Galt's plan is a history of Lord Byron's mind
rather than of himself; a condensation of events and effects according as they bore upon works
whose attraction was at once derived from, and afterwards reflected on their author. Few
persons have been more unfortunate in those circumstances over which they have no control, such
as birth, fortune, education, &c. than Byron. No distinctions take a
stronger hold on the mind than hereditary ones. We have not time to discuss the justice of the
pride of birth; but it is a pride so sanctified by time, as to seem rather innate than
acquired,—one administered to by the legends told for the amusement, and the annals read for
the information of youth; one to which the respect conceded seems of a higher order than that
given to riches, inasmuch as it is more disinterested. Pride of birth is one of the most
influential of those feelings which go towards forming a character. It was one of the keys to
Byron. Secondly, poverty: it is easy to declaim philosophically on the
folly of luxury, the needlessness of many wants and certain appliances; but while wealth
commands the consideration no one can deny it does in our present state of society, the absence
of that wealth will be keenly felt, not for its luxury, but for its power: the, privations of
poverty are nothing to its mortifications. There can be no doubt, that the loss of what his
family pride held to be necessary to its dignity, was another great source of that bitterness,
and that affectation of reserve, which, under the name of dignity, was some wounded feeling
shrinking into its own shadow: we deceive no one so much as we deceive ourselves. Thirdly,
temper: and every page of Mr. Galt's work bears us out in our
long-established belief of the great influence Lord Byron's bad temper
exercised upon his life. Now, we must own, good temper is one of those qualities we like rather
than either respect or admire,—a compound usually the result of cowardice and indolence, or, at
best, of animal spirits: it is very difficult for a person of warm affections and vivid
imagination, which so exaggerates the impressions it receives, to be a good temper, whose grand
secret is, after all, indifference. But we draw a wide distinction between one of those
worrying, peevish, dissatisfied dispositions, whose miseries are as petty as the mind which
makes them, and indulgence in which is a positive enjoyment to the proprietor; and one whose
sensibility is too keenly awakened, and whose feverish anxiety for the opinion it covets, keeps
up that state of morbid excitement which must have a re-action of gloom. We had better
expressed our meaning by calling Byron's an over-susceptible temper. But
these three, pride of birth, poverty, and a sensitive temper, were the great influences which
made his character. Of the judgments formed of that character, we shall only observe, people
are desirous of seeing a man of genius; they are disappointed if he is like themselves, and
discontented if he is not. The faults we indulge in ourselves we least easily excuse in others,
and vanity is one of those faults too general to be generally pardoned. Personally acquainted
with Lord Byron, a man of genius himself, Galt, like
Moore, brings much of previous qualification to the
task; and it is curious to observe how little they have trenched on each other's ground.*
Galt's is a literary and philosophic view: no one can possess this
volume without having a just idea of the man and the poet, an analysis of character as accurate
as it is original, and a condensation of all the events of a very varied life. It is valuable
as in itself a compendium of his history; but it is invaluable as a commentary on all that have
gone before—it is a finished cabinet picture. We would not, however, lose one preceding
fragment relating to an individual whose history affords such great insight into human nature,
and whose intrinsic interest will survive all the little gossipings and small disputes of the
hour. The subject is too exciting not to lead to the expression of some sentiments of our own;
but we do both the public and Mr. Galt injustice, in delaying to enter on
pages so replete with charm and information. The following admirable delineation of genius
shews the true feeling with which the author enters on his work.

“Genius of every kind belongs to some innate temperament; it does not
necessarily imply a particular bent, because that may possibly be the effect of
circumstances; but without question, the peculiar quality is inborn, and particular to the
individual. All hear and see much alike; but there is an undefinable though wide difference
between the ear of the musician, or the eye of the painter, compared with the hearing and
seeing organs of ordinary men; and it is in something like that difference in which genius
consists. Genius is, however, an ingredient of mind more easily described by its effects
than by its qualities. It is as the fragrance, independent of the freshness and complexion
of the rose; as the light on the cloud; as the bloom on the cheek of beauty, of which the
possessor is unconscious until the charm has been seen by its influence on others; it is
the internal golden flame of the opal; a something which may be abstracted from the thing
in which it appears, without changing the quality of its substance, its form, or its
affinities.”

How just, again, are the remarks on the influence of scenery!—

“He was, undoubtedly, delicately susceptible of impressions from
the beauties of nature, for he retained recollections of the scenes which interested his
childish wonder, fresh and glowing, to his latest days; nor have there been wanting
plausible theories to ascribe the formation of his poetical character to the contemplation
of those romantic scenes. But, whoever has attended to the influential causes of character,
will reject such theories as shallow, and betraying great ignorance of human nature. * *
*

“The views of the Malvern hills recalled to his memory his enjoyments
amidst the wilder scenery of Aberdeenshire. The recollections were reimpressed on his heart
and interwoven with his strengthened feelings. But a boy gazing with emotion on the hills
at sunset, because they remind him of the mountains where he passed his childhood, is no
proof that he is already in heart and imagination a poet. To suppose so, is to mistake the
materials for the building. The delight of Byron in
contemplating the Malvern hills was not because they resembled the scenery of Lochynagar,
but because they awoke trains of thought and fancy, associated with recollections of that
scenery. The poesy of the feeling lay not in the beauty of the objects, but in the moral
effect of the traditions, to which these objects served as talismans of the memory. The
scene at sunset reminded him of the Highlands; but it was those reminiscences which similar
scenes recalled that constituted the impulse, which gave life and elevation to his
reflections. There is not more poesy in the sight of mountains than of plains; it is the
local associations that throw enchantment over all scenes, and resemblance that awakens
them, binding them to new connexions: nor does this admit of much controversy; for
mountainous regions, however favourable to musical feeling, are but little to poetical. The
Welsh have no eminent bard; the Swiss have no renown as poets; nor are the mountainous
regions of Greece, or of the Appennines, celebrated for poetry. The Highlands of Scotland,
save the equivocal bastardy of Ossian, have produced no
poet of any fame, and yet mountainous countries abound in local legends, which would seem
to be at variance with this opinion, were it not certain, though I cannot explain the
cause, that local poetry, like local language, or local melody, is, in proportion to the
interest it awakens among the local inhabitants, weak and ineffectual in its influence on
the sentiments of the general world. The ‘Rans de
Vaches,’ the most celebrated of all local airs, is tame and commonplace,
unmelodious, to all ears but those of the Swiss ‘forlorn in a foreign
land.’”

The following observations on Byron's feeling
of love are as just as they are original.

“It is singular, and I am not aware it has been before noticed, that,
with all his tender and impassioned apostrophes to beauty and love, Byron has in no instance, not even in the freest passages of Don Juan, associated
either the one or the other with sensual images. The extravagance of Shakspeare's Juliet, when

* We reserve the preface, in which Mr. Galt delivers his opinion of Mr.
Moore'sMemoirs, for future discussion; that preface contains also other matter
well worthy of our consideration.—Ed. L. G.

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she speaks of Romeo being cut
after death into stars, that all the world may be in love with night, is flame and ecstasy
compared to the icy metaphysical glitter of Byron's amorous allusions.
The verses beginning with

‘She walks in beauty like the light

Of eastern climes and starry skies.’

is a perfect example of what I have conceived of his bodiless admiration of beauty and
objectless enthusiasm of love. The sentiment itself is unquestionably in the highest mood
of the intellectual sense of beauty; the simile is, however, any thing but such an image as
the beauty of woman would suggest. It is only the remembrance of some impression or
imagination of the loveliness of a twilight applied to an object that awakened the same
abstract general idea of beauty. The fancy which could conceive in its passion the charms
of a female to be like the glow of the evening, or the general effect of the midnight
stars, must have been enamoured of some beautiful abstraction, rather than aught of flesh
and blood. Poets and lovers have compared the complexion of their mistresses to the hues of
the morning or of the evening, and their eyes to the dew-drops and the stars; but it has no
place in the feelings of man to think of female charms in the sense of admiration which the
beauties of the morning or the evening awaken. It is to make the simile the principal.
Perhaps, however, it may be as well to defer the criticism to which this peculiar
characteristic of Byron's amatory effusions give rise, until we shall
come to estimate his general powers as a poet. There is upon the subject of love, no doubt,
much beautiful composition throughout his works, but not one line in all the thousands
which shews a sexual feeling of female attraction—all is vague and passionless, save in the
delicious rhythm of the verse.”

We much like the ensuing.

“The supposition that poets must be dreamers, because there is often
much dreaminess in poesy, is a mere hypothesis. Of all the professors of metaphysical
discernment, poets require the finest tact; and contemplation is with them a sign of inward
abstract reflection, more than of any process of mind by which resemblance is traced, and
associations wakened. There is no account of any great poet whose genius was of that dreamy
cartilaginous kind which hath its being in haze, and draws its nourishment from lights and
shadows; which ponders over the mysteries of trees, and interprets the oracles of babbling
waters. They have all been men—worldly men, different only from others in reasoning more by
feeling than induction. Directed by impulse, in a greater degree than other men, poets are
apt to be betrayed into actions which make them singular, as compared by those who are less
imaginative; but the effects of earnestness should never be confounded with the qualities
of talent.”

We have chosen these more abstract remarks to shew the style and spirit of
Mr. Galt's biography. We shall now turn to such
incidents as are either new in themselves, or possess some new inference drawn by the writer.

His Childhood.—“His schoolfellows, many of whom are alive,
still recollect him as a lively, warm-hearted, and high-spirited boy, passionate and
resentful, but withal affectionate and companionable: this, however, is an opinion given of
him after he had become celebrated; for a very different impression has unquestionably
remained among some, who carry their recollections back to his childhood. By them he
has been described as a malignant imp; was often spoken of for his pranks by the worthy
housewives of the neighbourhood as “Mrs.
Byron's crockit deevil;” and generally disliked for the deep vindictive
anger he retained against those with whom he happened to quarrel.”

It is remarkable that, though the faults of our childhood are comparatively
slight and unimportant, yet they are always those most deeply remembered and brought against us
in after life. The next anecdote we select as one to redeem many darker specks.

“Towards his nurse he evinced uncommon affection, which he cherished as
long as she lived. He presented her with his watch, the first he possessed, and also a
full-length miniature of himself, when he was only between seven and eight years old,
representing him with a profusion of curling locks, and in his hands a bow and arrow. The
sister of this woman had been his first nurse; and after he had left Scotland he wrote to
her, in a spirit which betokened a gentle and sincere heart, informing her with much joy of
a circumstance highly important to himself. It was to tell her that at last he had got his
foot so far restored as to be able to put on a common boot, an event which he was sure
would give her great pleasure: to himself it is difficult to imagine any incident which
could have been more gratifying.”

Much has been said of the weakness of thus dwelling on a personal deformity; but
we do think only those who suffer under such a misfortune can tell its bitterness. The wrong
and falsehood of such a style of poetical
criticism as the Edinburgh
Review indulged in, is most justly reprobated. We cannot but observe how
completely almost all its predictions of poetical fame have been falsified, and how all our
great English poets have made their way in defiance of criticism as flippant as unjust.
Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Montgomery, alike had in their onset to contend with the same
bitter and frivolous attacks. These are now standard names in our literature: but where there
is no feeling, there can be no appreciation.

“He was then just come of age, or about to be so; and one of his
objects in this visit to the metropolis was, to take his seat in the House of Lords before
going abroad; but, in advancing to this proud distinction, so soothing to the
self-importance of youth, he was destined to suffer a mortification which probably wounded
him as deeply as the sarcasms of the Edinburgh Review. Before the meeting of parliament he
wrote to his relation and guardian, the Earl of
Carlisle, to remind him that he should be of age at the commencement of the
session, in the natural hope that his lordship would make an offer to introduce him to the
house; but he was disappointed. He only received a formal reply, acquainting him with the
technical mode of proceeding, and the etiquette to be observed on such occasions. It is
therefore not wonderful that he should have resented such treatment; and he avenged it by
those lines in his satire, for which he
afterwards expressed his regret in the third canto of Childe Harold. Deserted by his
guardian at a crisis so interesting, he was prevented for some time from taking his seat in
parliament, being obliged to procure affidavits in proof of his grandfather's marriage with
Miss Trevannion, which having taken place in a
private chapel at Carhais, no regular certificate of the ceremony could be produced. At
length, all the necessary evidence having been obtained, on the 13th of March, 1809,
he presented himself in the House of Lords alone,—a proceeding consonant to his character,
for he was not so friendless nor unknown, but that he might have procured some peer to have
gone with him. It however served to make his introduction remarkable. On entering the
house, he is described to have appeared abashed and pale. He passed the woolsack without
looking round, and advanced to the table where the proper officer was attending to
administer the oaths. When he had gone through them, the chancellor quitted his seat, and
went towards him with a smile, putting out his hand in a friendly manner to welcome him;
but he made a stiff bow, and only touched with the tip of his fingers the chancellor's
hand, who immediately returned to his seat. Such is the account given of this important
incident by Mr. Dallas, who went with him to the
bar; but a characteristic circumstance is wanting. When Lord
Eldon advanced with the cordiality described, he expressed with becoming
courtesy his regret that the rules of the house had obliged him to call for the evidence of
his grandfather's marriage. ‘Your lordship has done your duty, and no
more,’ was the cold reply, in the words of Tom Thumb, and which probably was the cause of the marked
manner of the chancellor's cool return to his seat. * * * *

“Among other remarkable characters pointed out to us, was a nobleman in
the pit, actually under the ban of outlawry for murder. I have often wondered if the
incident had any effect on the creation of Lara; for we know not in what small germs the conceptions
of genius originate.”

The following is an example (and there are many others) of the great care with
which Mr. Galt observed minute facts with reference to
their poetical influence on Lord Byron's mind.

“But the most important occurrence of that evening arose from a
delicate observance of etiquette on the part of the ambassador. After carrying us to his box, which was close to that of the
royal family, in order that we might see the members of it properly, he retired with
Lord Byron to another box, an inflection of manners
to propriety in the best possible taste—for the ambassador was doubtless aware that his
lordship's rank would be known to the audience, and I conceive that this little arrangement
was adopted to make his person also known, by shewing him with distinction apart from the
other strangers. When the performance was over, Mr. Hill came down
with Lord Byron to the gate of the upper town, where his lordship, as
we were taking leave, thanked him with more elocution than was precisely requisite. The
style and formality of the speech amused Mr.
Hobhouse, as well as others; and, when the minister retired, he began to
rally his lordship on the subject. But Byron really fancied that he
had acquitted himself with grace and dignity, and took, the jocularity of his friend
amiss—a little banter ensued—the poet became petulant, and Mr.
Hobhouse walked on; while Byron, on account of his
lameness, and the roughness of the pavement, took hold of my arm, appealing to me, if he
could have said less, after the kind and hospitable treatment we had all received. Of
course, though I thought pretty much as Mr. Hobhouse did, I could not
do otherwise than civilly assent, especially as his lordship's comfort, at the moment,
seemed in some degree dependent on being confirmed in the good opinion he was desirous to
entertain of his own courtesy. From that night I evidently rose in

JOURNAL OF THE BELLES LETTRES.

555

his good graces; and, as he was always most agreeable and interesting when familiar, it was
worth my while to advance, but by cautious circumvallations, into his intimacy; for his
uncertain temper made his favour precarious. The next morning, either owing to the
relaxation of his abstinence, which he could not probably well avoid amidst the good things
of the ambassadorial table; or, what was, perhaps, less questionable, some regret for his
petulance towards his friend, he was indisposed, and did not make his appearance till late
in the evening. I rather suspect, though there was no evidence of the fact, that
Hobhouse received any concession which he may have made with
indulgence; for he remarked to me, in a tone that implied both forbearance and generosity
of regard, that it was necessary to humour him like a child. But, in whatever manner the
reconciliation was accomplished, the passengers partook of the blessings of the peace.
Byron, during the following day, as we were sailing along the
picturesque shores of Sicily, was in the highest spirits; overflowing with glee, and
sparkling with quaint sentences. The champagne was uncorked and in the finest condition.
Having landed the mail at Girgenti, we stretched over to Malta, where we arrived about noon
next day—all the passengers, except Orestes and
Pylades, being eager to land, went on shore with
the captain. They remained behind for a reason—which an accidental expression of
Byron let out—much to my secret amusement; for I was aware they
would be disappointed, and the anticipation was relishing. They expected—at least he did—a
salute from the batteries, and sent ashore notice to Sir
Alexander Ball, the governor, of his arrival; but the guns were sulky, and
evinced no respect of persons; so that late in the afternoon, about the heel of the
evening, the two magnates were obliged to come on shore, and slip into the city unnoticed
and unknown. At this time Malta was in great prosperity. Her commerce was flourishing; and
the goodly clusters of its profits hung ripe and rich at every door. The merchants were
truly hospitable, and few more so than Mr. Chabot.
As I had letters to him, he invited me to dinner, along with several other friends
previously engaged. In the cool of the evening, as we were sitting at our wine,
Lord Byron and Mr. Hobhouse were announced.
His lordship was in better spirits than I had ever seen him. His appearance shewed, as he
entered the room, that they had met with some adventure, and he chuckled with an inward
sense of enjoyment, not altogether without spleen—a kind of malicious satisfaction—as his
companion recounted, with all becoming gravity, their woes and sufferings, as an apology
for begging a bed and morsel for the night. God forgive me! but I partook of
Byron's levity at the idea of personages so consequential
wandering destitute in the streets, seeking for lodgings as it were from door to door, and
rejected at all. Next day, however, they were accommodated by the governor with an
agreeable house in the upper part of Valetta; and his lordship, as soon as they were
domiciled, began to take lessons in Arabic from a monk—I believe one of the librarians of
the public library. His whole time was not, however, devoted to study; for he formed an
acquaintance with Mrs. Spencer Smith, the lady of
the gentleman of that name, who had been our resident minister at Constantinople: he
affected a passion for her; but it was only Platonic. She, however, beguiled him of his
valuable yellow diamond-ring. She is the Florence of Childe Harold, and merited the poetical
embalmment, or rather the amber immortalization she possesses there—being herself a
heroine. There was no exaggeration in saying that many incidents of her life would appear
improbable in fiction. Her adventures with the Marquess de
Salvo form one of the prettiest romances in the Italian language; every
thing in her destiny was touched with adventure: nor was it the least of her claims to
sympathy that she had incurred the special enmity of Napoleon.”

There is much probability in the assertion, that Ali
Pasha was the model which suggested many of the most remarkable features in his
heroes.

Of all Lord Byron's works, Mr. Galt gives the preference to those which treat of Greece:
this we think admits of more than a query; but as it is a mere point of taste, taste is too
debatable ground for us now to enter on. The whole history of these travels, however, quite
supports Mr. Galt's assertion, that the scenes through which
Byron past, and the various incidents and individuals he encountered,
are the canvass he afterwards coloured, and the figures he introduced, and that his poetry was
never so great as when founded on actual occurrence, reality being at once his material and his
inspiration. This is true, for it is the part of genius to apply more than to invent, to
exhaust this world rather than to imagine new. Our belief of how much he felt the straitness of
circumstances is confirmed by the following:—

“I thought he was in that short space something changed, and not with
improvement. Towards Mr. Hobhouse he seemed less
cordial, and was altogether, I should say, having no better phrase to express what I would
describe, more of a captain grand than improved his manners, and more disposed to hold his
own opinion than I had ever before observed in him. I was particularly struck with this at
dinner, on the day after my arrival. We dined together with a large party at the consul's;
and he seemed inclined to exact a deference to his dogmas, that was more lordly than
philosophical. One of the naval officers present, I think the captain of the Salsette, felt, as well as others, this overweening, and announced a
contrary opinion on some question connected with the politics of the late Mr. Pitt with so much firm good sense, that Lord
Byron was perceptibly rebuked by it, and became reserved, as if he deemed
that sullenness enhanced dignity. I never in the whole course of my acquaintance saw him
kithe so unfavourably as he did on that occasion. In the course of the evening, however, he
condescended to thaw, and before the party broke up, his austerity began to leaf, and hide
its thorns under the influence of a relenting temperament. It was, however, too evident—at
least it was so to me—that without intending wrong, or any offence, the unchecked humour of
his temper was, by its caprices, calculated to prevent him from ever gaining that regard to
which his talents and freer moods, independently of his rank, ought to have entitled him.
Such men become objects of solicitude, but never of esteem. I was also on this occasion
struck with another new phase in his character; he seemed to be actuated by no purpose—he
spoke no more of passing ‘beyond Aurora and the Ganges,’ but seemed
disposed to let the current of chances carry him as it might. If he had any specific object
in view, it was something that made him hesitate between going home and returning to Athens
when he should have reached Constantinople, now become the ultimate goal of his
intended travels. To what cause this sudden and singular change, both in demeanour and
design, was owing, I was on the point of saying, it would be fruitless to conjecture; but a
letter to his mother, written a few days before my arrival at Smyrna, throws some light on
the sources of his unsatisfied state. He appears by it to have been disappointed of letters
and remittances from his agent, and says: ‘When I arrive at Constantinople, I
shall determine whether to proceed into Persia or return—which latter I do not wish if
I can avoid it. But I have no intelligence from Mr.
H., and but one letter from yourself. I shall stand in need of
remittances, whether I proceed or return. I have written to him repeatedly, that he may
not plead ignorance of my situation for neglect.’ Here is sufficient evidence
that the cause of the undetermined state of his mind, which struck me so forcibly, was
owing to the incertitude of his affairs at home; and it is easy to conceive that the false
dignity he assumed, and which seemed so like arrogance, was the natural effect of the
anxiety and embarrassment he suffered, and of the apprehension of a person of his rank
being, on account of his remittances, exposed to require assistance among
strangers.”

We suspect the word kithe will puzzle some of Mr. Galt's southern readers. Another anecdote confirms, if
confirmation were needed, how much his genius was struck by a passing circumstance:—

“While the Salsette lay off the Dardanelles,
Lord Byron saw the body of a man who had been
executed by being cast into the sea, floating on the stream, moving to and fro with the
tumbling of the water, which gave to his arms the effect of scaring away several sea-fowl
that were hovering to devour. This incident he has strikingly depicted in ‘The Bride of Abydos.’”

Again:—“Both the Fare-thee-well, and the Anathema on
Mrs. Charlemont, are splendid corroborations of the metaphysical fact which it
is the main object of this work to illustrate, namely, that Byron was only original and truly great when he wrote from the dictates of
his own breast, and described from the suggestions of things he had seen. When his
imagination found not in his subject uses for the materials of his experience, and
opportunities to embody them, it seemed to be no longer the same high and mysterious
faculty that so ruled the tides of the feelings of others. He then appeared a more ordinary
poet—a skilful verse-maker. The necromancy which held the reader spell-bound became
ineffectual; and the charm and the glory which interested so intensely, and shone so
radiantly on his configurations from realities, all failed and faded; for his genius dealt
not with airy fancies, but had its power and dominion amidst the living and the local of
the actual world.”

The inference that in Manfred there was no intention of implying that the hero had a guilty
passion for his sister is too ingeniously drawn to be omitted.

“There has always been, from the first publication of Manfred, a strange
misapprehension with respect to it in the public mind. The whole poem has been
misunderstood, and the odious supposition that ascribes the fearful mystery and remorse of
the hero to a foul passion for his sister, is probably one of those coarse imaginations
which have grown out of the calumnies and accusations heaped upon the author. How can it
have happened that none of the critics have noticed that the story is

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derived from the human sacrifices supposed to have been in use among the students of the
black art?”

Here is quoted a beautiful fragment, of which we subjoin only the last lines,
for connexion:—

“I loved her and—destroy'd her

Witch. With thy hand?

Manfred.

Not with my hand, but heart, which broke her heart.

It gazed on mine, and wither'd. I have shed

Blood, but not here, and yet her blood was shed;—

I saw, and could not stanch it.’

There is in this little scene, perhaps, the deepest pathos ever expressed; but it is not
of its beauty that I am treating; my object in noticing it here is, that it may be considered
in connexion with that where Manfred appears with his insatiate thirst of knowledge, and
manacled with guilt. It indicates that his sister, Astarte,
had been self-sacrificed in the pursuit of their magical knowledge. Human sacrifices were
supposed to be among the initiate propitiations of the demons that have their purposes in
magic—as well as compacts signed with the blood of the self-sold. There was also a dark
Egyptian art, of which the knowledge and the efficacy could only be obtained by the novitius
procuring a voluntary victim—the dearest object to himself, and to whom he also was the
dearest; and the primary spring of Byron's tragedy lies, I
conceive, in a sacrifice of that kind having been performed, without obtaining that happiness
which the votary expected would be found in the knowledge and power purchased at such a price.
His sister was sacrificed in vain.”

But surely these arguments are overthrown by one line in Manfred's own speech—

“Though it were

The deadliest sin to love as we have loved.”

We must confess, that the Italian confederacy for the Liberal places Mr.
Hunt in a meaner point of view, to our judgment, than Mr. Galt seems to consider him—in three pithy sentences the whole is well
characterised.

“Vanity was mingled with their golden dreams. Lord Byron mistook Hunt's political
notoriety for literary reputation, and Mr. Hunt thought it was a fine
thing to be chum and partner with so renowned a lord. After all, however, the worst which
can be said of it is, that, formed in weakness it could produce only vexation.”

If any one doubts the justice of the following, they have only to read the pages
whose author states such conviction.

“I have never been able to understand why it has been so often supposed
that Lord Byron was actuated in the composition of his
different works by any other motive than enjoyment: perhaps no poet had ever less of an
ulterior purpose in his mind during the fits of inspiration (for the epithet may be applied
correctly to him and to the moods in which he was accustomed to write), than this singular
and impassioned man. Those who imagine that he had any intention to impair the reverence
due to religion, or to weaken the hinges of moral action, give him credit for far more
design and prospective purpose than he possessed. They could have known nothing of the man;
the main defect of whose character, in relation to every thing, was in having too little of
the element or principle of purpose. He was a thing of impulses; and to judge of what he
either said or did, as the results of predetermination, was not only to do the harshest
injustice, but to shew a total ignorance of his character. His whole fault, the darkest
course of those flights and deviations from propriety which have drawn upon him the
severest animadversion, lay in the unbridled state of his impulses. He felt, but never
reasoned. * * *

“One day, as a friend of mine was conversing with his lordship at the
Casa Saluzzi, on the moral impressions of magnificent scenery, he happened to remark, that
he thought the view of the Alps in the evening, from Turin, the sublimest scene he had ever
beheld. ‘It is impossible,’ said he, ‘at such a time, when all
the west is golden and glowing behind them, to contemplate such vast masses of the
Deity without being awed into rest, and forgetting such things as man and his
follies.’ ‘Hunt,’ said
his lordship, smiling, ‘has no perception of the sublimity of alpine scenery; he
calls a mountain a great impostor.’”

Mr. Galt enters into less detail of opinion respecting
Don Juan than any other
work. We think a curious and interesting parallel might be drawn between that and the Pilgrimage: Don
Juan is Childe Harold unidealised; he goes
over the same ground, but in how different a spirit! What once excited enthusiasm now gives
scope for ridicule—sarcasms take the place of illusions; and if ever man felt that “a
glory was departed from the earth,” Lord Byron
was the man.

We now bid farewell to Mr. Galt, though
with the intention of again recurring to his pages; but we cannot defer to another week the
expression of our most cordial approbation. Good sense, good feeling, and good taste, go far
towards making a good biographer: he possesses them all. We have read his work with great
delight—we close it with mingled regret and admiration. It is now only necessary to speak of
its mechanical parts: it is handsomely printed, has two beautifully engraved portraits of
Byron and the Countess
Guiccioli, and is most moderate in price. It forms the first volume of the National Library; and is a foundation on which the highest expectations
may be formed of that undertaking.

Ali Pasha of Yannina (1740-1822)
Albanian warlord who expanded his territories during the Napoleonic wars but was
eventually suppressed by the Ottoman Turks; he entertained Byron in 1809.

Sir Alexander John Ball, baronet (1756-1809)
After serving in the Mediterranean under Nelson he was governor of Malta from 1803;
Samuel Taylor Coleridge served as his secretary and wrote a memoir of him in The Friend.

Sophia Byron [née Trevannion] (1758 fl.)
The daughter of John Trevannion of Carhays, Cornwall who married Admiral John Byron 8
September 1748; their two sons were both captains in the Royal Navy.

James Chabot (1778 c.-1850)
He was for many years a resident of Malta, an agent for His Majesty's Packet Service
trading as James Chabot and Co.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
English poet and philosopher who projected Lyrical Ballads (1798)
with William Wordsworth; author of Biographia Literaria (1817), On the Constitution of the Church and State (1829) and other
works.

Robert Charles Dallas (1754-1824)
English poet, novelist, and translator who corresponded with Byron. His sister Charlotte
Henrietta Dallas (d. 1793) married Captain George Anson Byron (1758-1793); their son George
Anson Byron (1789-1868) inherited Byron's title in 1824.

John Galt (1779-1839)
Scottish novelist who met Byron during the first journey to Greece and was afterwards his
biographer; author of Annals of the Parish (1821).

William Noel- Hill, third baron Berwick (1773-1842)
English diplomat and book-collector; he was envoy to Sardinia from 1807 to 1824 and
minister at Naples before he succeeded to the title in 1832.

John Cam Hobhouse, baron Broughton (1786-1869)
Founder of the Cambridge Whig Club; traveled with Byron in the orient, radical MP for
Westminster (1820); Byron's executor; after a long career in politics published Some Account of a Long Life (1865) later augmented as Recollections of a Long Life, 6 vols (1909-1911).

Frederick Howard, fifth earl of Carlisle (1748-1825)
The Earl of Carlisle was appointed Lord Byron's guardian in 1799; they did not get along.
He published a volume of Poems (1773) that included a translation
from Dante.

James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859)
English poet, journalist, and man of letters; editor of The
Examiner and The Liberal; friend of Byron, Keats, and
Shelley.

James Montgomery (1771-1854)
English poet and editor of the Sheffield Iris (1795-1825); author
of The Wanderer of Switzerland (1806) and The
World before the Flood (1813).

Thomas Moore (1779-1852)
Irish poet and biographer, author of the Irish Melodies (1807-34),
The Fudge Family in Paris (1818), and Lalla
Rookh (1817); he was Byron's close friend and designated biographer.

Emperor Napoleon I (1769-1821)
Military leader, First Consul (1799), and Emperor of the French (1804), after his
abdication he was exiled to Elba (1814); after his defeat at Waterloo he was exiled to St.
Helena (1815).

Ossian (250 fl.)
Legendary blind bard of Gaelic story to whom James Macpherson attributed his poems Fingal and Temora.

William Pitt the younger (1759-1806)
The second son of William Pitt, earl of Chatham (1708-1778); he was Tory prime minister
1783-1801.

Carlo, marchese di Salvo (1787-1860)
Sicilian author of Travels in the year 1806 ... containing the
Particulars of the Liberation of Mrs. Spencer Smith (1807). Sir Walter Scott
thought him a bore when he visited Abbotsford.

John Scott, first earl of Eldon (1751-1838)
Lord chancellor (1801-27); he was legal counsel to the Prince of Wales and an active
opponent of the Reform Bill.

Constance Spencer Smith [née Herbert] (1785-1829)
Daughter of Baron Herbert, Austrian ambassador to Constantinople, and wife of the
diplomat John Spencer Smith, with whom Byron had an affair in Malta. She died in
Vienna.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
With Coleridge, author of Lyrical Ballads (1798), Wordsworth
survived his early unpopularity to succeed Robert Southey as poet laureate in 1843.